Today, Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) has no products, no revenue, and happily, almost no debt. By early 2029, the odds are good that none of those factoids will still be true if the biotech is still around. People who bought shares today are liable to be either very pleased or very disappointed, with little chance of being somewhere in between.

Here's what could happen over the next five years and how it might leave the company and its shareholders.

The buzz surrounding Viking today stems from its VK2735 program to treat obesity. On April 27, it published the results of its phase 2 clinical trials, with the data indicating that the drug appears to be quite effective at assisting with weight loss when administered over a 13-week period. At the highest doses tested, patients lost 14.7% of their body weight, whereas patients administered the placebo control lost only 1.7%.

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Source Fool.com